Rumors: Apple working on iTunes controller for iPhone — An anonymous tipster tells TUAW that according to code found in the latest firmware release, Apple is working on a new iPhone application called iControl. Like Apple TV and other remote controllers, it would allow the iPhone …

Microsoft: Pondering the alternatives to Yahoo — Microsoft's Saturday “negotiate or else” deadline for Yahoo has passed with an eerie silence. Yahoo's board is reportedly meeting Sunday-you'd think the company would have met before the deadline, but I guess we're all prone to procrastination.

Bloggers offer glimpse of uncensored Cuba — HAVANA - Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access. — But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace.

Twitter gets another round of funding — Tweet and ye shall have. — A source familiar with the negotiations tells me that Twitter signed a term sheet for “either $15 million or $20 million” last week. We're still trying to find out who is in, but the word is that it's largely an inside round …

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus — (This is a lightly edited transcription of a speech I gave at the Web 2.0 conference, April 23, 2008.) — I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology …

Filesharing Report Shows Explosive Growth for uTorrent — The data presented here are based on a sample of over a million PCs (Windows only), and were gathered by PC Pitstop. — A few months we already reported that uTorrent overtook Azureus' position as the most installed BitTorrent application, and this trend continues.

Twitter Twerp Scan - block Twitter spammers — Twitter users are increasingly starting to question whether the frequent number of Twitter accounts that are following them are actually people, or simply a form of Twitter spamming. The rule of thumb with that sort of question is usually …

Interview with Donald Knuth — Andrew Binstock and Donald Knuth converse on the success of open source, the problem with multicore architecture, the disappointing lack of interest in literate programming, the menace of reusable code, and that urban legend about winning a programming contest with a single compilation.

Pivotal Canadian BitTorrent Showdown Looming — In October 2007, a small BitTorrent tracker called QuebecTorrent was pushed into the headlines, having been targeted by the Canadian music industry. It took threats from the CRIA to force Demonoid overseas, so QuebecTorrent might be forgiven …

GAPINGVOID: A NEW DIRECTION? — [Tablet PC sketch of what I have in mind. Click on image to enlarge etc.] — One of the things I like about Twitter is that it allows you to have instant feedback from lots of people while you're thinking out-loud. — Case in point: If you have been following …

BlackBerry's Quest: Fend Off the iPhone — STEVE JOBS, Apple's chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he's encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.